First it was United States Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth (IL) and Mazie Hirono (HI). On March 23, 2021, they brazenly stated that they would not vote to confirm any future Biden administration nominees who were not minorities or members of the LGBTQ community. “I am a no vote on the floor on all non-diversity nominees. I will vote for racial minorities and I will vote for LGBTQ, but anybody else, I’m not voting for,” said Duckworth. Senator Hirono expressed support for Duckworth’s “well-articulated, focused position” and was “prepared to join her in that.”
Now Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has joined the ranks of the openly racist Democratic women. After several reporters complained on social media that the mayor’s office would not grant them one-on-one interviews with the mayor because they were white, Mayor Lightfoot publicly acknowledged that what the reporters was told was in fact her policy. In a letter to Chicago media outlets on May 19, the mayor wrote: “By now, you may have heard the news that on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as Mayor of this great city, I will be exclusively providing one-on-one interviews with journalists of color.”
Why was she discriminating against white people? For two reasons:
First, because there are too many whites (and males) in the press corps: “I have been struck since my first day on the campaign trail back in 2018 by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically.” Tragically, the fact that the white reporters were actually competent was irrelevant to the mayor: “Many of them [reporters] are smart and hardworking, savvy and skilled. But mostly white, nonetheless.”
Second, the mayor instituted her minorities-only interview policy because white reporters refuse to acknowledge implicit racism: “[I]t is too heavy a burden to bear, on top of all the other massive challenges our city faces in this moment, to also have to take the labor of educating white, mostly male, members of the news media about the perils and complexities of implicit bias. This isn’t my job. It shouldn’t be. I don’t have time for it.”
One can only imagine what would have happened if a white mayor had said that he would allow only white reporters to interview him. There would be demonstrations in the mayor’s city and at his house. The U.S. Justice Department would be called in to investigate the mayor. News outlets would be blackmailed into creating minority-only internships and jobs. Yet none of this is happening in Chicago because this is business as usual for leaders in the Democratic Party.
It is high time that all Americans demand that our leaders look beyond our race, ethnicity, and sex and instead focus on our character and competence. Martin Luther King, Jr., would demand nothing less.